Steps To Building SaaS Product
SaaS applications are being developed more and more with each passing year. And we are not surprised by this.
SaaS business is quite popular in today’s time as it has been a very promising model for software vendors & companies around the world. Generally, these SaaS applications are deployed on public cloud such as Amazon Cloud (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc.
However, some software companies also prefer to host their SaaS applications on their own data center (aka private cloud). But doing so is relatively quite expensive and requires regular maintenance too.
What Exactly is SaaS?
SaaS, also known as Software as a Service, means software vendors or companies deliver software & maintenance via a subscription model. The best part about a SaaS product is that it does not require any physical computer to be installed on as it is hosted in the cloud.
Also, with SaaS, the software vendor or company does not require to manage any infrastructure, server, storage, or even maintenance, all they have to worry about is the product.
Reducing SaaS Applications Costs
With proper design considerations, you can create an optimized & user-friendly design that also helps to reduce costs.
Are you wondering how to design SaaS applications? Well, in this article we have discussed just that!
Step-by-step Guide To Build Applications For Cloud (SaaS)
1. Offer Your Customers A Clear & Reliable Service
While designing a SaaS application, it is very important to think of your customers first. Who are you building the product for? Some company or end-users like you and me? Well, whatever your answer is, you need to stay consistent & offer solid service.
However, if you are building a SaaS product for end-users then you need to think about them first.
Let us give you a practical example. Suppose someone wants to convert a PDF file into a Word file. Now, there are hundreds of online tools available but some of them have shifted to a SaaS model. This requires the customers to pay for subscription.
But why would an end-user pay for a subscription fee just for a single file? See, how absurd a SaaS model can become when a clear & reliable service is not offered to the correct customer base?
2. Design for Failure
Being optimistic is good but taking precautions is even better. That’s why designing a SaaS product that is fault-tolerant is fundamental to Cloud. Why, you ask? Well, imagine your SaaS application getting a bug. How will you ensure that it will continue to serve the users? By designing for failure! Cloud vendors offer a few resources that can come handy. Here are two ways:
• Use a Load Balancer: Using this method, you can make your SaaS product nodes-fail-proof. Simply put the application nodes behind a Load Balancer. This will solve the node failure issue as well as balance the load.
• Geographically Distributed Application: This method helps your SaaS application become geographical-proof. This means that even if one geographical area is impacted, the application will still be served using the other areas.
3. Design Multi-Tenancy With Performance & Security in Mind
Multi-Tenancy means that a single instance of the software is used to serve multiple customers simultaneously. This means, all the users & applications share a common infrastructure & code base, which is centrally maintained.
Do you know? With a common code base being used, development can be fast. This is because developers can simply use a previously written code base to expand the service and apply changes.
An application should be readily customized to meet the requirements & user-friendliness of individual enterprise business or individual customer. And with multi-tenancy, customers can easily personalize the design along with adding custom fields, defining specific workflows, etc.
However, multi-tenancy requires high security as the infrastructure of the application is shared among all users.
4. Choose Technology Stack
Selecting a technology stack is as important as market research. You will require several kinds of tools. These tools will be for developing the client-facing components and server-side development.
Tools For Developing Client-Facing Components
The following two tools are ubiquitous:
• HTML + CSS
• JavaScript’s frameworks (Angular, React, Vue.js)
Languages & Frameworks For Server-Side Development
• JavaScript (Node.js)
• PHP (Laravel)
• Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
Along with them, building a SaaS application requires a database for back-end data storage. These two primary relational databases will be viable options:
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
Now, finally, select a server for your application.
• Nginx
• Apache
Each of the options mentioned here best aligns with particular user cases. So, we recommend carefully estimating your platform’s scalability, start up costs, and potential profits before making any selection.
5. Search For SaaS Developers
Building an in-house SaaS developers team can be expensive and trying to train your already existing employees into it may not yield positive results. So, what’s the best solution in today’s rapidly changing digital ecosystem? Outsourcing to an experienced team of SaaS developers!
Well, finding a competent team of SaaS developers is an important investment that requires careful examination. While you are looking for one, you should keep in mind that it would be for long-term.
6. How to price your SaaS Product
Preparing a pricing strategy for your SaaS application is a very important step. If carried out properly, it can earn your business huge profits. Quite a few numbers of options are available such as:
• Freemium — the basic or standard features are made available to users for free. To access more premium features, the user will have to pay. This gives users a free test-drive of the application to lure them in without being too generous.
• Subscription — similar to Freemium model, this pricing strategy requires the users to pay a monthly recurring fee to access premium content. It is more suitable for content-oriented applications like video hosting apps.
• Paid applications — unlike the previous model, this requires the user to pay a one-time fee to gain complete content access of the application.
7. Test, Improve & Launch
Finally, when your SaaS application is built, it is time to test, improve & launch it. First, you can release it in the in-house and test for bugs. If everything goes well, you can launch the application to beta-testers, fix any bugs found, add new features, and then release it to the general public.
To Sum It Up
Designing a SaaS product is no small deal. It requires dedication, consistency and most of all, key design considerations to make it user-friendly and cost-effective.
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